© Peddinghaus Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is Peddinghaus Public Information.

Customer Case Study

1|Page

CONTRACTORS STEEL COMPANY:Service Means Success

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Service Means SuccessDonald R. Simon is not just a steel person, but a family person. These two parts of his life converged in August of 1960, during a discussion with his wife Esther. “We formed Contractors’ Steel after Esther approached me and said, ‘Don, $137 a week just doesn’t cut it to support our family’. So I said to my wife, ‘the only thing I know is steel, so I better go into the steel business’.” Don purchased 25 tons of steel, an old used truck, a tracked crane with 40’ boom, and rented space behind a lumber yard to store steel on the ground. Joined by his wife Esther and colleague Mark Bokas, Sr., Contractors Steel Company was born.

Today, over fifty years later, and with just under one million square feet (ninety-three thousand square meters) of space under roof, the original pickup has been long retired and in its stead stands a fleet of over ninety trucks. With five steel service center facilities throughout the Midwestern USA, Don still works his fifty hours per week, but now the children of Marc and Don are assuming active roles in the firm’s management. Now doing more than simply delivering steel, Contractors Steel Company offers an array of processing capabilities using equipment that is second to none in the service center industry.

CUSTOMER NAME: Contractors Steel Company

INDUSTRY: Service Center

LOCATION: Livonia, Michigan, USA

CHALLENGE: To keep up with the demand for processed plate parts that had the following processes: drill, mill, tap, countersink, cut, and scribe

SOLUTION: The Peddinghaus HSFDB-2500 plate processor

RESULTS: An increase in plate productivity and plate jobs requested MACHINES INSTALLED: HSFDB-2500 plate processor

L to R: Dennis Blount, Robert Simon, Donald Simon, and Marc Bokas, Jr. of Contractors Steel Company with their Peddinghaus HSFDB plate processor.

© Peddinghaus Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is Peddinghaus Public Information.

Customer Case Study

2|Page

Over Half a Century in Business Takes More than LuckAs anyone in the steel business will tell you, it takes more than luck to stay in operation for over fifty years. Throughout those fifty plus years, Contractors’ key to success has been superior customer satisfaction. Technology has played a large role in servicing their diverse client base, and today the firm maintains a vast arsenal of automation to produce parts in the fastest manner possible. Robert Simon, CIO/CFO, states, “We get the material to the customer when the customer needs it. There is no two or three day delay. It’s not uncommon that a customer calls us at five o’clock for a next day delivery. At Contractors Steel we get it done, whatever it takes.”

Continually searching for ways to improve, the team at Contractors’ found themselves searching for a “game changing” piece of technology to help them better service their OEM, and miscellaneous/structural fabricator clientele. Dennis Blount, Special Projects Manager, states, “It’s common for customers to ask for holes in parts but in some scenarios these holes cannot be burned and must be drilled. In the past, we would either cut the part to shape, and provide it to the customer so that they could complete the drilling process on their own, or we would perform the drilling here in the shop manually using a magnetic based drill or radial arm drill. This inevitably takes extra time, and quality becomes harder to control. We were looking for a machine that combined these processes.”

Peddinghaus Presents NEW PossibilitiesContractors examined all of their options, starting with familiar designs that used table and gantry systems, but decided to try a newer method of plate processing which focused on functions besides just burning. Dennis recalled, “We have had a lot of traditional burning machines in our production. These machines can be retrofitted or upgraded to have a drill spindle included, but the machine isn’t really designed for that. It almost seemed like the drill spindle was an afterthought. With the Peddinghaus HSFDB, the design starts with the spindle. It’s a drilling machine that also is designed to cut, which means better performance.”

After careful consideration, Contractors Steel Company decided to partner with Peddinghaus for their latest plate processing center. The Peddinghaus HSFDB is adding a new dimension to what customers can receive from their trusted steel supplier. With the ability to drill, mill, tap, countersink, scribe, cut, and more in a single cell, the HSFDB helps produce higher quality parts faster than ever before.

“We had seen Peddinghaus, we knew lots of customers who had

Parts from the HSFDB are immediately packaged for shipment upon completion.

The HSFDB at Contractors Steel Company employs the latest in Hypertherm plasma cutting technology.

Contractors’ primary production facility in Belleville, Michigan has over 430,000 square feet (40,000 square meters) under roof.

© Peddinghaus Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is Peddinghaus Public Information.

Customer Case Study

3|Page

mentioned Peddinghaus, and we understood they have a reputation for reliability, durability, productivity. Using our Peddinghaus we are able to perform an array of functions and cut parts to shape, all on one machine. This is a lot more efficient, and a lot more profitable than before. The Peddinghaus has enabled us to create a better product for our customers, and get into different markets that we didn’t have exposure to in the past,” stated Marc Bokas, Jr., COO.

Built to last, Marc further comments on the machine’s design, “The Peddinghaus machine is very solid. It seems like all the components are built to do what it is designed to do and more. We have bought a lot of equipment, and we have seen a lot of equipment that was advertised to do certain things, but it seemed like they were under-engineered, but not the Peddinghaus. This piece of equipment if anything is over-engineered and it does an excellent job in regards to what we need done in an efficient, and productive manner.”

Words to Live ByTechnology is just a vehicle to success. To truly succeed, a firm needs a deep desire to provide a quality product. This is evident when Don Simon describes his company, “Over the last fifty-two years we have been in business I would say that we have been a success because we work hard, we’re honest, and we give the customer the best service that we can provide. I think if you talk to our customers, not only are we honest and ethical with how we work, but when they want something it’s our fondest desire to deliver parts in the fastest manner possible. Our philosophy has always been to give them a dollars value for a dollar’s worth of product. There’s no secret to success, it’s just good business.”

The powerful spindle of the HSFDB is capable of drilling, milling, tapping, countersinking, scribing, and more.

The measurement system of the HSFDB doubles as a clamping system, providing 12 tons (11 metric tons) or clamping power across the entire width of material.

© Peddinghaus Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is Peddinghaus Public Information.

Customer Case Study

6|Page

FOR MORE INFORMATION

To learn more about Peddinghaus Corporation visit:www.peddinghaus.com

PRODUCT LIST: ▪ Beam Drill Lines ▪ Anglemasters ▪ Plate Processing ▪ Coping Machines ▪ Thermal Cutting ▪ Automated Layout Marking ▪ Structural Band Saws ▪ Ironworkers ▪ Material Handling

Peddinghaus Corp Bradley, IL